


A Winner Is Blue

by kittydesade



Category: Looper (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 04:36:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/605883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittydesade/pseuds/kittydesade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The problem with Kid Blue is, he's only capable of not fucking up when no one knows about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Winner Is Blue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kiyala](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiyala/gifts).



> Contains bad language, including ablist language.

Kid Blue was a consummate fuckup. The ultimate butt-monkey. It had been that way as far as anyone could remember, and no one claimed to understand why Abe put a gat in his hand and let him go out where he could wave it around, shoot people he wasn't supposed to. 

"You gonna shoot your other foot off?"

Kid Blue put the gun down on the table. Made a big deal about putting it down carefully. "Why you always ask me that? You always gotta ask me that?"

They laughed. The other gat men always laughed at him. Some days even he didn't know why Abe made him a gat man to begin with. Most days, though, he was grateful. It kept him from being street pizza or worse. He looked up and down the block before he came into the Belle at night and he saw what he'd be if Abe hadn't took him in. It was what kept him toeing the line instead of going out trying to prove himself on his own. He'd be patient. Wait for a good opportunity.

Meantime, tonight was gat men only, and that meant him. All the girls and entertainment the Belle could provide, which was good because this was about the only place he could stand to hang out in. At least here the girls liked him, and the entertainment was free. The girls had to like him because Abe paid them, though deep down he was pretty sure they'd like him anyway. Pretty sure.

Kid Blue went down to the lounge alone, after a couple other groups had gone. He'd learned not to try the dramatic entrance thing. Most of the time.

  


  


He ended up by himself, same as always. Some nights that was better than being around the other gat men, most of whom wouldn't know one end of a gun from the other if it bit them. Some of whom were decent folk, like Ace or Jesse. Blue liked Jesse, didn't speak a harsh word to him that wasn't earned by something he'd done. Because yeah, he'd done his share of stupid things once in awhile, he'd own that. He also just had worse luck than the rest of the gat men put together, and they'd never let him forget it, as though it was his own damn fault.

He folded his hands and leaned his forehead against his fingers and thought about calling it a night early. Get some rest. He'd been up too late the past couple of nights doing extra security after some jackass tried to run his loop. Abe put extra gat men on the club and the office in case it made the Loopers nervous. And Kid Blue had taken a couple late night shifts, gotten too little sleep. Servers wandered in and out of the crowd balancing trays full of too many drinks. The stupider gat men dropped, then giggled at everything. The lights got blurry, there was some midget in overalls wandering around at knee level, and Blue sat up again, shook his head. Now he was hallucinating. 

Then one of the servers swore at the kid for getting in her way and almost making her spill her drinks. So the kid wasn't a hallucination.

Blue stiffened, stone cold sober now, and ran his fingers through his hair. Then his nails over his head, scratching. Shit. Shit twice and fall back in, was this the kid of one of Abe's girls? They knew they weren't allowed to bring kids to the Belle. But what patron would be stupid enough to bring a kid to this place? Maybe a server's kid. None of the gat men had kids that he knew of. None of them dared.

Before he could point out the kid to Jesse or Abe, assuming he was down yet, or anyone who he'd trust with a little one the kid was gone. About six years old, Blue guessed, six or a very small eight.

He gave himself five minutes to talk himself out of it then hauled up and went to the bar. “Hey, Topper.”

“Hey, Blue.” The bartender didn't look at him till he was done filling up the line of shots in front of him. “What can I getcha?”

“Name and number of the mom of that kid was here a second ago?”

At least half the gat men around him misunderstood what he was going for; he ignored them laughing and cracking jokes. Topper didn't blink. “What kid?”

“That kid, there was a kid here, couple minutes ago,” five minutes and counting. “Almost tripped one of your girls.” That didn't occur to him till he said it, the waitress, she could verify that Kid Blue wasn't finally losing his marbles. She'd almost tripped over the kid, she knew he was there. “Redhead, bottle dark red with the nice gams, she knows what he looks like.”

“Oi, Ginger,” Topper called. The server came stalking up. “Kid Blue thinks you know something about a kid wandering around here tonight? Someone bring their kid in? I told you girls...”

She shook her head, though, glared in Kid Blue's direction. “No one brought their kid in, Topper, you know Abe doesn't like kids around here unless he brings them in himself. Blue's seeing things. You're tired, babe,” she turned to Blue himself with a look like the end of a twelve hour shift. “Go home, get some rest.”

He thought about arguing with her, but there wasn't much point in making a fool of himself. “Yeah, whatever,” he shook his head and muttered at the bartender. “Keep an eye out, okay?”

“Okay.” Shrug, and the crowd closed around the bar, shutting Blue out.

  


  


He lit up and waited across the street as the waitresses filed out, some of the gat men with them. Some of the nicer gat men, older, mostly. He'd occupied a piece of bench in the greasy spoon and decided to wait while the workers came out the service entrance, just in case the kid was one of theirs. Servers came out sometime after midnight. The girls came out a lot later.

He liked it better this way, anyway. This way he didn't have to explain to anyone why he was doing what he was doing, didn't have to try and come up with a hard luck story about when he was growing up. Because it wouldn't be true. And then they'd pity him some more or laugh at him for being a sucker, and it would just stay in the shitter, and for no damn reason. No one needed to know about his little project. Except him and the kid's mom.

She was a server. Not Ginger, but Ginger knew the mom, probably she'd been protecting her friend when she'd lied to the bartender. So the mom wouldn't get into trouble, because Abe didn't like it when people broke his rules. Gotta have discipline. “Sure, you gotta have discipline,” Blue agreed under his breath, but that didn't mean you had to be a complete monster while you did it. Loopers were murderers for hire, but lazy murderers, they didn't have to do shit. They got a gun you didn't need to aim, shot a tied up and hooded guy from ten feet away, dumped his body in an incinerator and then got paid stupid amounts of money. For doing work a retarded guy could do. Gat men ranged from complete monsters who liked bossing people like Blue around to overall decent guys like Jesse who didn't mind that they were killing for a living, because someone was gonna do it. Might as well be them, who could do it quick and clean and not hurt anyone more than necessary.

And Abe kept it all working smooth. No more bullshit than necessary. Because you gotta have discipline.

But he had an idea what Abe would do if he knew someone was bringing a kid into his club nights. He'd lose his shit. And someone would get hurt, probably the kid's mom, and then the kid wouldn't have anyone because in Blue's mind, the kid's dad was either worthless or out of the picture completely. So he couldn't let that happen.

Except he'd just let the mom and her kid out of his sight, and now he had no clue which way they went. “Shit,” he yelled, tossing down money for the coffee and jumping to his feet. “Shit, shit, shit...”

He caught up with the mother just as she was getting into a car with someone, driving away. Blue kept up a steady stream of cussing, calling himself names he'd've pulled a gun on anyone else if they'd called him that. “Stupid fucker,” he swore as he kicked his bike into gear. “Stupid, stupid, stupid...”

  


  


The kid's mom lived in a worse section of town than most of the Loopers, which was saying something. House with no curtains in the front, not much furniture he could see in the front room, and the worn-out shell of a garage falling off the side. She told the kid to wait out front, though, so maybe it wasn't her house.

Kid Blue lurked behind a couple of trashcans and it didn't take two minutes between her going in the house and someone yelling through the siding about how she was a dumb bitch and why'd she only bring that much, that wouldn't buy shit. And then she yelled back at how he was a stupid bastard and the only reason she'd come by was so he could take care of the damn kid for once, and the damn kid sitting right on the front step listening to the whole thing.

“Jesus christ, you two.” Blue shook his head. All that was missing was a couple of comments about how the kid was a worthless fuck-up. The mom seemed to be the worthless fuck-up in this family, but she yelled as much as she got yelled at. And the kid sat on the front step and tried hard as he could to be as far away as possible.

He sat back on the pavement and tried to think. Favors or no favors, Abe would kill him and dump him down the chute if he brought the kid into the Belle, and it wasn't like he knew what to do with a six year old. He couldn't take the kid back to his place. Eventually he did figure there wasn't much of anything he could do tonight, didn't mean he was going to forget about it. The kid's mom drove off without him, and the man from the house stared down at him before stepping aside so the kid could go in. Blue went home, trying to forget about the whole thing long enough to get some sleep.

“Hey, Jesse,” he said the next day at lunch, as they were all hanging around in the restaurant. Jesse had come up to the bar to order a drink, one whiskey and soda, and water after that. “You heard anything about Leo's new girlfriend?”

Jesse blinked. “Didn't know Leo had a new girlfriend. Why's this important?”

“I don't know, maybe it's just me,” Blue shrugged. “Seemed like she was getting pushy on him, though. Trying to get him to stay home more, go out less. Maybe retire from the gat life.” Leo _had_ been running on Abe's teams less, but that had to do with something between him and Abe, Blue knew, not anything about his girl. But Jesse didn't know that.

“Leo wants to retire, that's between him and Abe, that's nothing to do with me,” Jesse shrugged, but he didn't push Kid Blue off, which the younger gat appreciated.

“Yeah, I know, it's just... Leo's a nice guy, you know? I don't wanna see him get into trouble with Abe. He won't listen to me, but maybe you could talk to him?”

Jesse took forever to sip on his whiskey, turning that over in his head. Watching Blue, too, in a way that made him uncomfortable because he didn't want to have to explain any of this. He'd taken most of the night to come up with the lies. Jesse could pull it all apart with the right question. “Yeah, sure,” he said, after about a hundred years of waiting. “Why not.”

Kid Blue waited until Jesse had finished his drink, finished his meal, which took forever. Gave him a ten count to get out towards his car and then scrambled for the back door and to hell with dignity. Onto his bike and then he had to make it over to the dad's house to drag him out. “Abe wants me to talk to you,” he grinned, manic, underslept and overcharged. He waved his gat around like nobody's business, careful not to point it at the kid. “Says you've been skimming from his fair cut. Says he'd like me to talk to you about it. So, let's you and me talk.”

By the time they got to the diner he said had the best burgers around (he lied) Leo and Jesse were coming down to the laundromat, same as every week, like clockwork. Tuesdays were Leo's days off, he got laundry done, got his hair trimmed sometimes or other times got something done at the library, Blue had never followed him in there on account of not giving two shits. But the point was, Jesse would be walking Leo out and talking to him about his girlfriend. And he'd be around to see this.

“Sorry, kid,” Blue muttered, and kicked an old broken-off spigot into the kid's path as the dad dragged him along behind. The kid tripped, lost his grip on the dad's hand. The dad, already stressed by Kid Blue's threats, blew up on the kid. Even hit him a couple of times, which was more than Blue had wanted, but he was busy skedaddling out of Jesse's line of sight because sure as dawn, here came Jesse, wanting to know what this guy was doing hitting a six year old boy.

Jesse'd take care of the kid. Jesse was good people, and the guy was scum. Real scum, as it turned out, since it seemed like he really was skimming from the top. Went and turned himself in to Abe sobbing for him to please give him a break. Abe played it cool till he found out what the guy was talking about. Then he broke his fingers. Abe got his money back. The kid got a better life in a good home. Everybody won. Nobody knew who'd done it.


End file.
